Report: Lions Still In Talks With TE Brandon Pettigrew, But He’s Likely To Reach The Open Market

However, Birkett believes a deal before the deadline is unlikely, and expects him to test the open market.

Pettigrew, 29, caught 41 passes for 416 yards receiving and two touchdowns over the course of 14 games. We have him listed as the No. 76 player in our Top 100 Free Agents list.

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Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press reports that although the Lions are currently in talks with free agent TE Brandon Pettigrew regarding a new contract, “odds are” they won’t have an agreement in place before the free agent period kicks off next Tuesday.

According to Birkett, Detroit is “comfortable” allowing Pettigrew to test the open market.

As things stand right now, the Lions should have around $11 million in available cap space to work with, but $2 million figures to be allocated to re-signing restricted free agent RB Joique Bell.

Lions GM Martin Mayhew has said that retaining Pettigrew was among the team’s offseason priorities, but it wouldn’t be easy for them to compete with serious offers prospective teams.

It’s hard to pinpoint what kind of market Pettigrew will have in the coming weeks as he is one of the best available tight ends. However, he really hasn’t developed into the kind of weapon the Lions were hoping he would be when they used a first-round pick on years ago.

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Willie Young should be worth about 3m and he should come before Pettigrew. Mathis may be a highly rared CB, but the younger CB’s on the roster need to be developed. Let him walk unless he accepts minimum. A fair price for Pettigrew is probably 4m, the same as he got last year. I don’t say he’s worth 4m, but if there’s no dead money for 2015 in it and lions have the option of extending it, it would be nice to have one less hole in the roster to fill. There is FS, OLB, WR, and C to worry about, not to mention DE if willie is not back.